I had a blast at the event – loved talking with friends and fans, loved listening to the stories, and loved performing. I even slipped into a southern drawl during my performance of Chantal Noordeloos’ “Mirror Mirror” – something I hadn’t planned to do, but the dialog seemed to invite it, so I rolled with it.

Unfortunately, though, this is going to be one of those memories I avoid revisiting in pictures because of how I look. I’ve lost half of my pregnancy weight in just 10 weeks, but for me, as with many women, it’s hard to look at HOW we look with anything but a glass-half-empty mentality.

Weight has always been the Achilles’ Heel to my ego. I was fat as a kid, and tormented for it, and turned into an anorexic teenager to make up for it. Even after I found my ideal weight, my height has always made me feel like a giant compared to other women. It’s been a lifelong challenge to embrace my body type, to love who I am inside AND out. Add *cough*-ty pounds of baby weight, I end up feeling like a holiday float.

So when I look at the pictures from my reading, I don’t see a lady who is already halfway back to her pre-pregnancy figure. I see a holiday float in front of a microphone.

photo by Robert Lutz

But that’s ok. Looking back through my old journals, I reminded myself that it took eight months to lose the weight from my first child (which is fair, I think, since it took ten months to put it on!) Thanks to nursing and a whole foods diet, I also lost *cough*-ty extra pounds, so that by the time my son had his first birthday I was sleek and happy in my size 10 jeans – just right for my type.

I’m hoping to do the same thing this time around. I’m eating healthy whole foods again, aspiring to exercise (heh), and watching the weight come down in a natural way (read: slow). In the meantime, I’m trying to be kind to myself. I’m enjoying my baby girl. I’m embracing the things that I love, like writing. Like performing. I may never be able to gaze at those pictures of me at the mic with a warm fuzzy feeling, even when (and if) I lose the weight… but at least I’ll have the memories. Float or no float, I did go to that party, I did get up to that mic, and I did do my thing. And it was awesome.

I think that’s key to a full life: you don’t HAVE to love every inch of yourself, but you do need to be kind to you, and love you as a whole. You need your whole self to show up, after all. If you’re half-glassing it, you’re only half living.

I do need to get a babysitter, though, so I can get myself to that salon. Note to self. A nice cut and color can do wonders for self-love.

“Avaricious, cruel, depraved, envious, mean-spirited, vengeful—the wicked have been with us since the beginnings of humankind. You might recognize them and you might not. But make no mistake. When someone wicked crosses your path, your life will never be the same. Do you know someone wicked? You will.

The 21 stories in the Someone Wicked anthology were written by the members of the Written Remains Writers Guild and its friends, and was edited by JM Reinbold and Weldon Burge.”

Someone Wicked is an eclectic web of stories spun around the central theme of evil incarnate, with a diversity of genre and style that is the hallmark of Smart Rhino Publications (and good anthologies everywhere). The authors featured in this collection include veteran storytellers as well as virgin word-wrights for whom Someone Wicked is a first-time publication. Contributors include:

Gail Husch – Reckonings

Billie Sue Mosiman – The Flenser

Mike Dunne – The Fire of Iblis

Christine Morgan – Sven Bloodhair

Ramona DeFelice Long – The Chances

Russell Reece – Abracadabra

Carson Buckingham – The Plotnik Curse

Chantal Noordeloos – Mirror Mirror

Patrick Derrickson – The Next King

Barbara Ross – Home Improvements

JM Reinbold – Missing

Shaun Meeks – Despair

Liz DeJesus – Sisters: A Fairy Tale

Doug Blakeslee – The Flowering Princess of Dreams

Justynn Tyme – The Semi-Aquatic Blue Baker of Borneo

Ernestus Jiminy Chald – The Tail of Fate

Weldon Burge – Right-Hand Man

Joseph Badal – Ultimate Betrayal

Maria Masington – Impresario

L.L. Soares – Sometimes the Good Witch Sings to Me

and – hey, that’s me! –

Shannon Connor Winward – The Devil Inside.

Interested in learning more? Someone Wicked is being featured at The Mortuary, an online forum dedicated to the horror genre in all its forms. Creep over to the discussion to see what readers and authors are saying about the Someone Wicked stories.

By the way, the illustration for the cover for Someone Wicked (which I absolutely LOVE) was created by Jamie Mahon and designed by Amy York. Learn more about all the Someone Wicked, as well as news and updates, over at www.SmartRhino.com.